Antonin Scalia - On American Exceptionalism

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Strong rec splintercell · 2020-06 · on “DEA authorized to conduct surveillance on protestors”

I highly recommend watching this video [1] to understand why "progress has stalled". Believe it or not, it's by design. 1. [this video]

Strong rec emchammer · 2025-09 · on “ABC yanks Jimmy Kimmel’s show ‘indefinitely’ after threat from FCC chair”

It depends on where you draw the line for acting in good faith. Justice Antonin Scalia's opening statement before a 2011 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is worth watching. [this video] Even more worth reading are the Federalist Papers, cover-to-cover, as he suggested. The depth to which the Framers considered the kind of situations we are in today is amazing.

Recommends mvanga · 2019-02 · on “EU Countries Back Copyright Reforms Aimed at Google, Facebook”

I wanted to add that, in the US, it isn't primarily the constitution that protects its freedoms, but rather the structure of their government and how it's been setup for gridlock among all the parties involved (not that that property has been preserved too well of late). Antonin Scalia explained it really well in one of his appearances in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee: [this video] I admit to not fully understanding the intricacies of the EU system but, on the surface, it does appear to be setup for much lower friction when attempting to pass sweeping legislation like this one.

Recommends ethn · 2020-06 · on “Liquid Democracy”

A constitutionally limited government can explicitly hurt minority rights, for instance the Confederate States Constitution, or betray intentions of principles through direct democratic procedures by interpretation and enforcement. With direct democracy you do have tyranny of the majority while this is certainly mitigated in a representative democracy; for instance the 2016 election where the popular vote would have selected a different president. The US founding fathers were very familiar with Aristotle who stated: "Unlimited democracy is, just like oligarchy, a tyranny spread over a large number of people.” Indeed the US founding fathers' decisions reflect this, If we're to believe their c

Recommends supernova87a · 2020-09 · on “Contradictions in Roman law left incurable headaches for its judges”

I'd love to discuss with others here something related. I have lately (to my surprise) been drawn by some talks of Antonin Scalia on Youtube. Far from being repelled (or amused at his standing alone) as I was years ago by his coming down on the opposite side of judgements I thought were socially just and good, I now come to understand better what he was doing. At least if you believe his talks. After listening to his talks (and then thinking back to his opinions), I understand he was trying to make sure that the Constitution was followed to the letter of the law, and that if the people were unhappy with it, let them change it so that it reflected the popular desires. But let it follow that p

Recommends sillysaurusx · 2020-09 · on “Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died”

Exactly! Which is why this conversation is so interesting – and why it seemed they were unfairly downvoted. The question of "does friendship compromise integrity of systems over time?" is quite fascinating, and there are many examples across many countries that show "yes, yes it does." So it seemed entirely legitimate to say that perhaps a system should penalize friendships, somehow. But, after watching Scalia, how can you not like him? [this video] [LINK] He was witty, charming, and a master orator. So when people hear "can't have a friendship with Scalia, even though you work with him," it's kind of like "can't breathe, even though you're human." It's a logical contradiction. And it's not even

Recommends joey_bob · 2022-03 · on “Microsoft is tied to hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bribes”

The title is a bit inflammatory, but in this clip from Scalia's testimony relates the overall concept well. [this video]

Recommends splintercell · 2022-06 · on “Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade”

Remember, founding fathers had a very dim view on Democracy, this is why they chose to have a Republic and then restrict the republic through a constitution. If Democrats were losing out to big numbers, they would pro-republic and Republicans would be pro-democracy. But, one of the best explanations for why founding fathers built the system the way they did is this[1], by late Justice Scalia. The fundamental idea is that the American system is created to represent the will of the republic across time and space: - Every bill needs to be passed by all three House, Senate and the President - House recycles very fast (every 2 years) - President recycles at a moderate speed (every 4 years) - Sena